You be the GM....

[Diesel]

You have aging star Dominique Wilkins.

At the age of 33, he's giving you 29.9 ppg, 6.8 rpg, and 3.2apg

His contract extension will be due at the end of the season. He is making 3.5 Million per year.

Currently, he's 4th in the league in ppg and he's an allstar.

Your team is atop of it's division at the time and 2nd in the conference.

Jordan has just retired.

Your team is 36-16 under new coach Lenny Wilkins

Los Angeles approach you with an offer of a 6-10 F-C who is 27 yrs old named Danny Manning.

He was a college star.

He averages 23.7ppg, 7 rpg, 4.2 apg.

He is in his contract year.

He's making 3.25 Million.

He is a fan favorite... even though attendance has started to fall drasticaly.

As far as PFs and Cs you have:

Kevin Willis

Jon Koncak

Adam Keefe

Andrew Lang

Willis is getting you 19, 12, and 2.

Los Angeles says, Manning is unhappy here. We will give you Manning for a first rounder and Nique.

As the GM (forgetting hindsight) do you make this deal?

[thecampster]

You have aging star Dominique Wilkins.

At the age of 33, he's giving you 29.9 ppg, 6.8 rpg, and 3.2apg

His contract extension will be due at the end of the season. He is making 3.5 Million per year.

Currently, he's 4th in the league in ppg and he's an allstar.

Your team is atop of it's division at the time and 2nd in the conference.

Jordan has just retired.

Your team is 36-16 under new coach Lenny Wilkins

Los Angeles approach you with an offer of a 6-10 F-C who is 27 yrs old named Danny Manning.

He was a college star.

He averages 23.7ppg, 7 rpg, 4.2 apg.

He is in his contract year.

He's making 3.25 Million.

He is a fan favorite... even though attendance has started to fall drasticaly.

As far as PFs and Cs you have:

Kevin Willis

Jon Koncak

Adam Keefe

Andrew Lang

Willis is getting you 19, 12, and 2.

Los Angeles says, Manning is unhappy here. We will give you Manning for a first rounder and Nique.

As the GM (forgetting hindsight) do you make this deal?

I cried bloody murder when it happened. I'm a romantic when it comes to sports. I grew up in Chicago and watched Ryan Sandberg play nearly his whole career with the Cubs and loved it when he retired a Cub. At the same time, just before I moved to Atlanta, I watched Greg Maddux bolt town when everyone watching knew just how special he would be. Loyalty matters. It's a big reason why I want to see Josh, Al and Teague stay. I think players that start in your organization and earn their paycheck (notice Marvin's name not on my list) should get the honor of staying with the organization as long as they can. To me, that's how you win a championship. It's more than just the best players. It's building a family type of environment when people are willing to go to war with each other. High character, high effort players.

Nique was that guy. If I had a criticism of Nique when playing its that anyone who can play that good offensively as a high flyer, should have been a better player on the defensive end. Defense wins championships.

[tbhawksfan]

BOLD move that totally backfired. Letting Nique go was a franchise breaker, unless the moves was sucessful. It looked like a good, but unpopular move.

I probably wouldn't have made it, but Nique was going into decline and we had a solid contender if the move panned out.

[capstone21]

Nique was by far my favorite player but that was when his decline began. He was giving us 24.4 and 6.6 btw not 29 ppg.

If you notice...his production dropped off dramaticlly after that. Manning came in and played well and he meshed with Willis and the team.

THe big problem with the deal is that we did not sign him to come back and he left and went to PHX. If we had signed him and he kept up his production it would have been a good deal.

[Seano]

It's a really tough call to make. Do you trade your iconic but aging face of the franchise, even though he was still an effective player and his team was quite good? I'm sure what they were thinking at the time was that the team had gone as far as it possibly could with Dominique as its centerpiece player, and given his age and what could only be an accelerated rate of declining production, they made the best deal they could.

And like Capstone said, had we re-signed Manning, we might be looking at this thing in an entirely different light today.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Nique was starting to become an erratic scorer and a high volume shot guy.

But even back then, a young me in college understood the need for a go to type scorer, especially when the playoffs came around. And frankly, I felt that they OWED IT to Nique to let the season play out, and see if he could bring home a title to ATL. With no Jordan around, and us fighting for that #1 seed, I knew that was our best chance EVER to win anything. I really didn't care about what we could or couldn't get back if NIque left. All I was worried about was how could this team finally make a run at a title, with my favorite player on the team. I literally shed a tear when I heard about that trade. I knew we had fugged up. But I knew it was coming as well.

But Lenny didn't like the fact that Nique's mindset was all offense, with little emphasis on defense and playing team ball. So he co-signed that trade. I think he may have even spearheaded it.

You bring in Manning, who looks to be an upgrade, but he didn't have a go-to scorer's mentality. And that ish KILLED US in the playoffs. He didn't play bad. But we needed more because we didn't have many shot creators on the team.

All the Hawks had to do, was let the market set his price. If they didn't like it . . move on. What seemed like a smart basketball move, turned out to bite us in the azz, because the Hawks didn't even negotiate or agree to sign Manning to an extension before the season was over. The fact that ended up losing BOTH guys, was just a slap in the face, and typical of what was to come for the next 15 years from management. Even back then, management was incompetent.

Edited June 9, 2011 by northcyde

[Diesel]

Nique was by far my favorite player but that was when his decline began. He was giving us 24.4 and 6.6 btw not 29 ppg.

If you notice...his production dropped off dramaticlly after that. Manning came in and played well and he meshed with Willis and the team.

THe big problem with the deal is that we did not sign him to come back and he left and went to PHX. If we had signed him and he kept up his production it would have been a good deal.

I stand corrected... But you should too.

Nique was giving us 24.4..

But he went to LAC and averaged 29.1... I read the wrong column. That means that he didn't immediately go into decline.

He played well in the playoffs for the Cs the next year. That Celtics team was a mess though. They have several Sfs and they tried a 2 Sf set with Nique and Fox and it just wasn't working.

[Dejay]

Interesting topic. As has been stated a million times on this board, there was no Bird, MJ, or Isiah around that season. The loyal Hawk fan in me would've wanted to do everything in my power to get the necessary pieces around Nique so that he could go out as a world champion that year, or at the very least, get to the NBA Finals. If they were 26-25 at the time instead of 36-15, then, AND ONLY THEN do you deal your franchise player; at least you could say that you weren't winning with him on the team. But if you're a contender, you sink or swim with your #1 guy. And if you're going to make a deal, use other player(s) and picks in order to do it. The Pistons did when they sent Adreian Dantley packing in order to bring in Mark Aquirre. The same could be said with the Bulls when they swapped Oakley for Cartwright.

The team was the top-seed in the East but their premise was wrong in terms of shaking things up before the trade deadline. The Hawks needed a shooter to go with Mookie in the backcourt (Augmon was a great defender but give me an off-guard with a nasty jumpshot who can get me 17+ a night anyday of the week), along with some frontcourt help. Not only did Reggie Miller and Byron Scott not have to worry about having to defend Augmon on the other end but Rik Smits and the Davis boys had their way in the paint throughout the series.

Instead of looking at the future, I would've loaded up by bringing in some more guys who could PLAY. Guys like Adam Keefe and Ennis Whatley had no business being counted on to produce in the postseason. As for the offseason afterwards, come what may. If Nique leaves after his ticker-tape parade, you can trot out the 'he wanted too much $$$ for his age/declining production, we had no choice' excuse and not come away looking as bad as sending him off to NBA Siberia in the midst of a potential championship season for a guy who never wanted to be here in the first place.

Edited June 10, 2011 by Dejay

[capstone21]

I stand corrected... But you should too.

Nique was giving us 24.4..

But he went to LAC and averaged 29.1... I read the wrong column. That means that he didn't immediately go into decline.

He played well in the playoffs for the Cs the next year. That Celtics team was a mess though. They have several Sfs and they tried a 2 Sf set with Nique and Fox and it just wasn't working.

I didn't want to lose Nique either.

I wish he had stayed.

Basiclly my point was nique was on the downside of his career and we had a chance at a guy who was on the upside who could give us another potentially great player (injures ended up destroying his career).

Manning really fit in well with our team setup and if he had stayed I think the Hawks might have not lost a beat. Since Manning left for PHX we lost nique for nothing.

[AtlHomer]

Manning really fit in well with our team setup and if he had stayed I think the Hawks might have not lost a beat. Since Manning left for PHX we lost nique for nothing.

If memory serves me right, the Hawks also gave up a first round pick in the deal. Late in the round but a first round pick nonetheless...

[capstone21]

If Manning had stayed and continued to play at the level he was playing at I think it would have been a good trade.

The fact that he left makes it a horrible one.

[Diesel]

If Manning had stayed and continued to play at the level he was playing at I think it would have been a good trade.

The fact that he left makes it a horrible one.

Naw, what made it a horrible trade was the fact that we had the chance to win it all. We were leading our division, we had beaten Houston, we looked good. Willis was on, Nique was on, we were even playing defense. Manning was a great college player, but in the pros, he was not a finisher. Manning didn't want the pressure of having to carry the team. Nique had been used to carrying the Hawks offensively.

Maybe they thought that Manning's defensive effort would make things better, but honestly, Willis was doing just fine in the frontcourt.

To add to that, it wasn't just a straight up swap, we also gave up a first rounder who I believe became Greg Minor (not much harm there). There was nobody between Minor and Nickerson except Charlie Ward.